The great movies, "The Front Page," "His Girl Friday," the
brutally cynical "Ace in the Hole," "Absence of Malice," "All the
President's Men," "Sweet Smell of Success" - god, "Sweet Smell of
Success!" "The Year of Living Dangerously," "The Killing Fields,"
"The Quiet American," "Good Night and Good Luck." And the greatest
one, "Citizen Kane."

I've loved four great newspapers in my life: The New York
Times, The Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Boston Globe.

These are all shell papers now, ghosts of their former selves. Today we are hearing the death rattle of the Globe as the Times struggles to stay afloat.

Some people say newspapers have outlived their usefulness.
These folks have their iPhones and Twitter and podcasts and RSS
feeds. Newspapers, they say, are like buggy whips. They served their
usefulness and should pass quietly from the scene.

But it's hard to come up with the many cultural contributions
of the buggy whip. Or to find instances where people have given their
lives for it.

The International News Safety Institute recently estimated that more than 1,300 journalists and other news professionals have died trying to cover the news in 105 countries since 1996. In places like the Congo, Mexico, Darfur, Georgia, Iraq, Colombia, Gaza, Afghanistan. They didn't die to provide "content." Or to raise the price of a media company's stock. They died to bring us the truth.

Some people say that texting, community journalism and social
networking will replace newspapers. Yes, it's easy to hear about a
plane landing on the Hudson River from people with iPhones who were
watching as the thing come down. But will they break the news on
Twitter about the next Abu Ghraib, pedophile priests, or a corrupt President?

Newspapers are more than a place to learn what's happening in
the world. They're more than a place to find out which congressman is
stealing, which sports figure is on steroids, and which actor is
secretly having an affair.

They're where you go to get a lead on the good movies and
books. They tell you stories about people you've never heard of. They
give you the scores and the past performances. They tell you about
the latest hip restaurants. They even give you pages of recipes. How
many of us have learned to cook our first turkey with the pages of
some newspaper taking up too much counter space?

All in one place, mind you. And every day.

Every day in this country, about 1,400 daily newspapers large
and small publish how many pages filled with how many words?

And who comes up with the words to fill those pages? Writers.

Mind you, I'm not saying that all newspaper writing is good
writing. Far from it. A lot of reporters are terrible writers. They
bury the important facts, or cling to the "narrative" opening even
when it's a hard news story, or get their facts wrong, or misquote
and misinterpret, or push their own agendas, or defend conventional
wisdom even when it's clearly not true.

But when you've got that many pages to fill with that many
words, you're going to unearth some damn fine writers along the way.

A world without newspapers is a world without a place for
writers to be paid to start writing. It's a place where curious
people won't be paid to start investigating. I fear a new set of
Dark Ages ahead.

We're barely five months into the new year, and the number of
laid-off or bought-out reporters is approaching 10,000. The number
will rise if the Globe is closed.

Imagine if Hemingway was still alive and someone called him a
"content provider." That's a fight I'd like to see.

Joyce Marcel is a journalist. She can be reached at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.